Pre-season at Manchester United and Jose
Mourinho pulls Antonio Valencia to one side. 'It was one of our first
conversations,' revealed Valencia this week.
'He
said, "When I was coach at Real Madrid, I wanted to sign you as my
right back but United said no". It was great to hear because every
player needs the
coach's trust. For me it was a big moment.'
Valencia's
season has not been short of big moments. It was not long ago that many
thought the 31-year-old was on his way out of Old Trafford. He feared
it, too. New attacking players had been bought and it seemed the
Ecuadorean's race was run.
But as United try to extend their unbeaten
Premier League run at home to Watford on Saturday, Valencia will be in
the team. A winger all his career, he is a right back now, a switch that
looks permanent.
He has proved himself
good enough to make 21 league starts and, on handing him a new contract
last month, Mourinho described him as the most accomplished right back
in world football.
I am very happy and I'm very grateful for
the manager's words,' he said. 'I don't believe I'm the best but I am
really pleased to still be here.
'There
was a time when I saw players of the class of Angel di Maria and
Memphis Depay arriving and wondered if my time was reaching an end.
Perhaps I needed to start looking for a new club. Thankfully I just
concentrated and trained hard and maybe that's why I'm still here.
Mourinho has shown faith in me to stay
here so I'm delighted. I don't want to say I am 100 per cent a right
back. I still feel like a right-sided attacking player but I guess I am
getting there.
'It's quite tough
because you need to focus even more because you're playing closer to
your own goal. One misplaced pass can result in you conceding a goal.
'I
feel I've improved in that area but when I'm on the attack it's like
I'm in my position. But I am in the team and feel like I have the
manager's backing and his trust.
'I
have a new contract and I love the club, the city and my family like
living here in Manchester. I would like to stay here as long as I can,
five even six years, more maybe!'
That may seem ambitious and the broad grin
on Valencia's face indicates that he knows it, too. You wouldn't put
too much past him though.
Valencia has
already survived one career-threatening injury to build a 'second
career' at United and this season broke a bone badly in his right arm
only to be back on the field three weeks later.
'I broke my leg against Rangers (in 2010) and it did cross my mind that I might not be able to play again at all,' he recalled.
'It
was a bad injury and a hard recovery but I have nothing but thanks for
the medical team here. It was them more than my own work that got me
back. But I did worry of course.
'This season it was a complicated operation on my arm but at least you can protect it with a cast. You can't do that with a leg!
With your arm you can play as it heals. It's just my arm.
'There was some pain, yeah. At first it was hurting and I was scared about falling. But you just want to play at this club.
'That's
not because you are scared of missing your place but just because you
enjoy playing so much. If I don't play, you miss all the fun.'
Earlier in the season, there didn't seem
that much fun at Manchester United. Results under Mourinho were poor and
everything looked a little like hard work. As spring beckons, however,
United are on the hunt for a top-four place and have an EFL Cup final to
play two weeks on Sunday.
At the
club's AON Training Centre on Thursday there was certainly much to
enjoy. The Manchester United Foundation were holding their third
#SchoolsUnited event as children joined Valencia, Paul Pogba and five
other first-team players to try a series of football-related challenges.
At the same time, 11 team-mates were meeting children at schools across
Manchester.
Valencia also runs his own
foundation at home in Ecuador and said: 'It's great being here and
knowing we are helping out and doing our bit to help Manchester United's
image and football's image as a whole.
I am always grateful to have this life and
football has made that life for me. It's always important to do
something for others who have the same dreams that I used to have. The
club does lots like this.'
After the session is over, Valencia sits in an adjacent dressing room and looks back over his life less ordinary.
He
has been a United player since 2009 and is four short of 200 league
appearances. He has two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and League Cup
and played in the 2011 Champions League final defeat against Barcelona.
Asked
if he could ever have dreamed of this as he grew up in the poor oil
town of Lago Agrio in the north-east of Ecuador, he laughed.
'It
would have been impossible to believe because at that age I never
thought I would travel further than the corner of my own street,' he
said.
Lago Agrio was carved out of the
Amazon rainforest in the 1960s when oil was discovered. It's a tough
town and Valencia's upbringing was hard.
 |
| Sir Alex Ferguson brought Valencia to Old Trafford in 2009 and the move has been a success |
His house — a shack, in all honesty — was
opposite the Carlos Vernaza Football Stadium and that provided a
lifeline for a young boy who took his ball to school every day.
His
education was basic and his school reports modest at best but it was a
decision made at the age of 15 that set Valencia on his journey to the
Premier League.
Hearing that Ecuador
Serie A team El Nacional were hosting trials, Valencia borrowed the bus
fare from his mother to make the 160-mile journey to Quito. He never
told his father and he never came back. 'It was pure nerves that I was
suffering on that journey, because I didn't know where I was going to
sleep or eat,' he recalled.
'I really
didn't know what the future would hold but I had a huge hope and desire
to play football, you understand? That's all I was thinking about,
nothing else.
'I can remember it like yesterday. It will always be etched in my memory because it's still a motivation for me.
I remember when we arrived at the complex.
There were bunk beds in the dormitory. Another kid gave me some sheets,
saying that was all he had to help me with. Other kids offered their
support too. And that's what I remember about my first night there. I'll
never forget it.'
Valencia sailed
through the trial the next day and progress at El Nacional was rapid.
Recently, United's in-house TV station travelled to Ecuador with
Valencia to visit the club.
The
brilliant programme is called The Amazon to Old Trafford and is on
YouTube. In that footage, esteemed Ecuador midfielder Juan Carlos
Burbano tells how the young Valencia resembled 'a jaguar running past a
cactus'. Valencia, meanwhile, recalls being given his first pair of
boots.
'They were a white pair of adidas,' he said. 'Before that I had only plimsolls.'
These
days he is viewed as his country's best ever player and most famous
export. As a young player, the regime was strict at a club attached to
the army.
My fitness coach was a major in the army, and the guy who looked after the complex was a captain,' explained Valencia.
'So
you had to get up in the morning at 6.30am and make your bed and clean
everything so it was spotless. Fifteen bunks in one room.
'You had to have discipline or you would fail but that helped me in England.
'I didn't have any difficulties in that respect when I came here because I was already prepared for anything.
'I'd
not had the chance to go back there in 12 years so when I went back to
do the TV programme it brought it all back, where you lived, slept and
ate.
It really does give you goosebumps. It's
amazing to think of this journey I have been on. All the time I was
thinking, 'Can I really do this?'
'The path has been difficult and complicated but I needed a better future and that is what makes me proud now.
'I can see my family, and in particular my parents, enjoying the stuff that happens in my career. That really makes me happy.'
Valencia
was not on the Premier League's radar at all until Paul Jewell spotted
him in the 2006 World Cup while the Wigan manager was working for BBC
Radio 5 Live. Jewell brought the young winger to the North West on loan
from Villarreal and has subsequently described him as the best player he
has ever worked with.
Valencia said
this week: 'When you're 20, and you come to a country where it's really
cold and rains a lot, you end up asking yourself what you are doing
there.
'I didn't speak the language, I didn't know the customs and traditions.
'Sometimes
in a morning I would look out at the mist and rain, I'd say to myself,
'It can't be true that I'm here!' But I had to be strong because I
already had my daughter Domenica to look after and I was also
representing a whole nation of people.'
Those who remember
Valencia at Wigan — Steve Bruce eventually turned the loan into a
permanent transfer — talk of a shy boy with a sense of humour. They say
the same at United. 'Is that what they say about me here?' asks Valencia
in mock surprise.
Valencia was looked
after by a core group of players including Emile Heskey — who would
invite him round to watch football — Kevin Kilbane, Leighton Baines and
Chris Kirkland. 'It was the perfect dressing room,' Valencia recalled.
'Sometimes
they would even write Spanish words down for me to help in training.
They were humble enough to do that. It was touching, a great curve for
me, and I couldn't have done this without them.'
Present every step of the way back then was translator Phil Dickinson. The two friends met again for this interview.
In those days, Dickinson would sit next to
Valencia in the changing rooms on matchday and was once asked to put on
a kit and train with the first team.
'I didn't understand a word and the manager never held back,' Valencia laughed.
'He'd
be coming out with some tasty language at half-time and sometimes he
(Dickinson) would say, 'It's OK, I won't translate that. You will get
offended'.
'But I would say that I had to know everything that he was saying!
'Once
they made him get his boots on and I couldn't believe it. We were doing
drills and he was translating and playing one-twos with me. They were
great times at Wigan.'
Valencia didn't believe Bruce when he told
him that United were interested. Subsequent glories at Old Trafford may
have signified the culmination of his great journey but under Mourinho
he believes he has road left to travel.
This
season no Premier League player has completed more crosses and
Valencia's most recent provided a key goal for Zlatan Ibrahimovic at
Leicester.
'I think the team have improved, we're playing well and high on confidence,' he said.
'We just hope that the fans are happy at what we're doing. For me, this is still just a dream.'
(Source: Daily Mail)
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